Follow Your Heart

A content heart is hard to come by. We, the human species are extremely ungrateful and almost never satisfied. But sometimes, one will feel this satisfaction of the heart with Imaan. And it is profoundly beautiful. So beautiful, that the reality could be the worst possible scenario, but your imaan filled content heart will make it seem easy.

I’ve felt this sweetness of Imaan in my heart. And once an individual feels it, they fall in love with it. What made the companions of the Prophet sallalahu alayhi wasallam so strong and steadfast one might wonder? What made them sacrifice so much for the sake of Allah? It is this same imaan.

The Scholars of Islam say Imaan fluctuates. And this is the truth, you’ll notice, your Imaan will never stay the same. It will either go up or down or only stay the same for short periods of time. This is the will of Allah. A person must stay in a constant struggle to keep their Imaan tank full.

There are various things that make ones Imaan fall. Sins, actions which go against the shariah, your environment, circumstances, it could be anything. With me, the minute my imaan is on a low-down I can feel it and sometimes, I know the reasons behind it.

I’ve been so stressed for the past month or so and my Imaan wasn’t exactly anywhere where I’d once had it. I’d mentioned previously on my blog that I had a very good Job offer from somewhere and I was considering it. This consideration literally made me go crazy. The reason was because, at the beginning of the year, I’d made the intention of dedicating this year to doing nothing but study the deen – to gain knowledge and to study, learn and implement the Qurán. I’d signed up for a one and a half year Quran course and I was in my second month of it when I got this Job offer.

And I considered it. Maybe it was a test from Allah, but it was amazing how this particular job was exactly tailored around my needs and wants. It was my perfect place to work. A nice environment, a field which I’m involved in, a position in the government, and they were absolutely okay about any sort of strict shariah pardah – it was amazing. But the only thing was, it was clashing badly with my Qurán classes. The timings were nearly the same.

I felt a mountain load on my chest for the past month or so not knowing what decision I should make. I made myself believe I could do both, Qurán and work. I would do the Qurán as correspondence, there was an option about that and I could work at the same time.

But I’d been doing isitkhaarah, and even later on, I just felt so stressed about the whole issue, I didn’t know why but my heart was not content. It kept on telling me something was wrong. I guess I knew I couldn’t handle it, that this was the wrong thing for me to do.

And so… after agonising over it for nearly a month and loosing sleep over what to do, I finally made the decision today. I wasn’t going to take up this job offer. It felt so good, subhanAllah. My heart felt so light after I thought it through. I felt such immense peace and a feeling of being content.

I called up my Mom and Sister [Who are still in Pakistan] today and I spoke to them again for a second opinion. And alhamdulilah, they were supportive of the decision I wanted to make. I opted out. I felt so good. As if a huge burden was lifted of my chest, I wanted to cry with happiness after I made the decision.

Falsa e-mailed me this hadith sometime back, and I remembered it again when going through this time of ‘thinking over’.

Wabisah bin Ma`bad (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: I went to Messenger of Allah (PBUH) and he asked me, “Have you come to inquire about piety?” I replied in the affirmative. Then he said, “Ask your heart regarding it. Piety is that which contents the soul and comforts the heart, and sin is that which causes doubts and perturbs the heart, even if people pronounce it lawful and give you verdicts on such matters again and
again.” [Ahmad and Ad-Darmi].

Sometimes, at the back of our heads, in our hearts, we know what is right. Our heart is there to guide us, to tell us what is wrong and right. Especially when it comes to matters of religion, but we’re stubborn. We think we know whats right. And Shaytan is always there to increase that stubbornness.

Alhamdulilah, I’m so happy now.

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Things to do

Sometimes there are days where you’re bored and living a very simple life because you have nothing to do and you crave some sort of excitement. While at other times you have days where life becomes so hectic, you don’t even get a moment for yourself.

I’m going through the latter right now. I have such a busy schedule that it’s literally giving me a headache. I’m the sort of person who stresses over things months in advance, although this will probably make me grow older faster and come out with white hair, it is a habit I can’t distance myself from.

Khair, I thought I’d ease the burden a bit and blog about them.

I have to:

1. study for my Qurán exam which is on this Monday. We finished half Juz and there is a tafseer/translation exam for it. Have I started studying? No!
2. Buy myself sweatpants for Gym. [Going to the mall is a hassle, not to mention I don't have time for it!]
3. Get my driving classes sorted out. For which I would need to go this place; sometimes I wish I could just stay at home and sleep it all away. I really hope I get my license before this month end but I have a feeling they’re going to drag me a bit more.
4. Write an article on ‘Divorce in the Muslim Ummah.’ I’ve been delaying this for more than 3 weeks. Thank-God this is on a voluntary basis and not a proper job, otherwise I’m sure the person organizing this would probably have fired me ages ago.
5. Start Qurán memorisation. I’ve been delaying this for sometime, mainly because I couldn’t get someone to be a ‘teacher’ for me and listen to my memorization. But now I’m targeting my Sister and plan to make her listen to me at least once a week. The thing is, alhamdulilah, memorisation of the Qurán comes to me pretty easily since I was a kid and I feel this is a blessing from Allah that I should utilize and not waste. I know people who have an extremely hard time memorising Qurán, but I thnk due to my own laziness [And Satan], I kept on putting this off. Memorisation of the full Qurán isn’t part of the course I’m doing, the course concentrates more on going in-dept of the Qurán and the tafseer, so that you know whenever something is recited, what it originates from or what is the story behind it. The memorisation would be a person thing that I want to start.
6. Find a [female] dentist and go to her. I’ve been having a constant toothache for a month and then it disappeared and now it’s back.

Well the above seem minuscule, but my schedule is so crazy, that it’s hard for me to get enough sleep. In fact I’ve cut down an hour from my afternoon nap and I love sleeping. But as we were learning in one of my classes yesterday, organisation is key if I want to finish the Qurán course in a year and a half time.

Organistation is key for everything. If you look at the Jews, who went from literally nothing, spending years in torment and humiliation to being some of the most professional and powerful people in the World today, you realise that one of the things that they did was organising themselves in such a manner that they structured themselves towards success. Their first initial University, which they bought in present day Palestine/Israel, had no holidays for a few years because they were so bent on rising up and making themselves come together as an Ummah. Anyway, Jewish history is very interesting, must read!

Heck, I think, if Women who have four kids [They spoke about their experiences in class], can do it, then so can I! [InshaAllah].

Sigh.

I keep on…

… thinking about updating this blog.

But then I have a pile of work to do and I also get lazy, so I leave it. And then, there is my other blog, which I’ve been paying more attention too. [This was a side-kick anyway ].

There is a thoughtful not-so-fictional post in process, which is saved in my drafts, but I’m not getting the time or feeling the mood to write it.

I’ll finish it… one day.

I’d mentioned in one of my previous [deleted] posts that I’d be taking a year off for a Qurán course, and I’m in the process of doing it now alhamdulilah. I was a bit hesitant in taking it for a couple of reasons, one mainly it was conducted in Urdu so I didn’t know how i’d work through it. However there were other equally good reasons that I was attracted to it.

Anyway, I’m doing good so far and there were quite a few interesting incidents in the beginning. More on those later!